Letters to young readers. Dmitry Likhachev

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Letter Eight
Be funny without being funny

Once upon a time it was considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune had happened to you, that you were in grief. A person should not have imposed his depressed state on others. It was necessary to maintain dignity even in grief, to be even with everyone, not to become self-absorbed and to remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one’s sorrows on others, not to spoil others’ moods, to always be even in dealing with people, to always be friendly and cheerful is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.

But how cheerful should you be? Noisy and intrusive fun is tiring for those around you. A young man who is always spitting out witticisms is no longer perceived as behaving with dignity. He becomes a buffoon. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it ultimately means a loss of humor.

Don't be funny.

Not being funny is not only an ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.

You can be funny in everything, even in the way you dress. If a man carefully matches his tie to his shirt, or his shirt to his suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. We must take care to dress decently, but this concern for men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares excessively about his appearance is unpleasant. A woman is a different matter. Men's clothes should have only a hint of fashion. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh, but not very bright tie are enough. The suit may be old, it should not just be unkempt.

When talking with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and at the right time. Take up as little space as possible. Therefore, at dinner, do not put your elbows on the table, embarrassing your neighbor, but also do not try too hard to be the “life of the party.” Observe moderation in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.

Don't be tormented by your shortcomings if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers can be excellent speakers, meaning every word they say. The best lecturer at Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, is historian V.O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight squint can add significance to the face, while lameness can add significance to movements. But if you're shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: Shyness is very cute and not at all funny. She only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome her and are embarrassed by her. Be simple and forgiving of your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it bitterness, hostility towards other people, and envy. A person loses what is best in him - kindness.

There is no better music than silence, silence in the mountains, silence in the forest. There is no better “music in a person” than modesty and the ability to remain silent, not to come to the forefront. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in a person’s appearance and behavior than being important or noisy; There is nothing funnier in a man than excessive care for his suit and hairstyle, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and anecdotes, especially if they are repeated.

In your behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest and quiet.

Never let yourself go, always be even with people, respect the people who surround you.

Here are some tips, it would seem, about secondary things - about your behavior, about your appearance, but also about your inner world: do not be afraid of your physical shortcomings. Treat them with dignity and you will look elegant.

I have a girl friend who has a slightly hunchback. Honestly, I never tire of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her at museum openings (everyone meets there - that’s why they are cultural holidays).

And one more thing, and perhaps the most important: be truthful. He who seeks to deceive others first of all deceives himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But a lie always reveals itself, a lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse, you become ridiculous.

Don't be funny! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you deceived before on some occasion, and explain why you did it. This will correct the situation. You will be respected and you will show your intelligence.

Simplicity and “silence” in a person, truthfulness, lack of pretensions in clothing and behavior - this is the most attractive “form” in a person, which also becomes his most elegant “content”.

Letter Nine
When should you be offended?

You should only be offended when they want to offend you. If they don’t want to, and the reason for the offense is an accident, then why be offended?

Without getting angry, clear up the misunderstanding - that’s all.

Well, what if they want to offend? Before responding to an insult with an insult, it is worth thinking: should one stoop to being offended? After all, resentment usually lies somewhere low and you should bend down to it in order to pick it up.

If you still decide to be offended, then first perform some mathematical operation - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something for which you were only partly to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Let's say that you were offended for noble reasons - divide your feelings into the noble motives that caused the offensive remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you will be able to respond to the insult with greater dignity, which will be the more noble the You attach less importance to resentment. Up to certain limits, of course.

In general, excessive touchiness is a sign of a lack of intelligence or some kind of complex. Be smart.

There is a good English rule: be offended only when you want offend intentionally offended. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention or forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age or some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special care to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.

This is if they “offend” you, but what to do when you yourself can offend someone else? You need to be especially careful when dealing with touchy people. Touchiness is a very painful character trait.

Letter ten
True and false honor

I don't like definitions and am often not ready for them. But I can point out some differences between conscience and honor.

There is one significant difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience one is purified to one degree or another. Conscience is gnawing. Conscience is never false. It can be muted or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor can be completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called “uniform honor.” We have lost such a phenomenon, unusual for our society, as the concept of noble honor, but the “honor of the uniform” remains a heavy burden. It was as if the man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders had been removed. And inside which a conscientious heart no longer beats.

“The honor of the uniform” forces managers to defend false or flawed projects, insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, fight with societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. Many examples of such defense of “uniform honor” can be given.

True honor is always in accordance with conscience. False honor is a mirage in the desert, in the moral desert of the human (or rather, “bureaucratic”) soul.

Letter Eleven
About careerism

Then, as a boy and a young man, he also studies.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...

But the acceleration continues, and now, instead of studying, the time comes for many to master their situation in life. The movement proceeds by inertia. A person is always striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in placing oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the real content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person personally unhappy and unbearable for others.

Letter Twelve
A person must be intelligent

A person must be intelligent! What if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: did the circumstances turn out that way? What if the environment doesn’t allow it? What if his intelligence makes him a “black sheep” among his colleagues, friends, relatives, and simply prevents him from getting closer to other people?

No, no and NO! Intelligence is needed under all circumstances. It is necessary both for others and for the person himself.

This is very, very important, and above all in order to live happily and long - yes, long! For intelligence is equal to moral health, and health is needed to live long - not only physically, but also mentally. One old book says: “Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth.” This applies to both an entire nation and an individual. That's wise.

But first of all, let’s define what intelligence is, and then why it is connected with the commandment of longevity.

Many people think: an intelligent person is one who has read a lot, received a good education (and even mainly a humanitarian one), traveled a lot, and knows several languages.

Meanwhile, you can have all this and be unintelligent, and you can not possess any of this to a large extent, but still be an internally intelligent person.

Education cannot be confused with intelligence. Education lives by old content, intelligence – by creating new things and recognizing the old as new.

Moreover... Deprive a truly intelligent person of all his knowledge, education, deprive him of his memory. Let him forget everything in the world, he will not know the classics of literature, he will not remember the greatest works of art, he will forget the most important historical events, but if at the same time he remains receptive to intellectual values, a love of acquiring knowledge, an interest in history, an aesthetic sense, he will be able to to distinguish a real work of art from a crude “thing” made only to surprise, if he can admire the beauty of nature, understand the character and individuality of another person, enter into his position, and having understood the other person, help him, he will not show rudeness, indifference, or gloating , envy, but will appreciate another if he shows respect for the culture of the past, the skills of an educated person, responsibility in resolving moral issues, the richness and accuracy of his language - spoken and written - this will be an intelligent person.

Intelligence is not only about knowledge, but about the ability to understand others. It manifests itself in a thousand and a thousand little things: in the ability to argue respectfully, to behave modestly at the table, in the ability to quietly (precisely imperceptibly) help another, to take care of nature, not to litter around oneself - do not litter with cigarette butts or swearing, bad ideas (this is also garbage, and what else!).

I knew peasants in the Russian North who were truly intelligent. They maintained amazing cleanliness in their homes, knew how to appreciate good songs, knew how to tell “happenings” (that is, what happened to them or others), lived an orderly life, were hospitable and friendly, treated with understanding both the grief of others and someone else's joy.

Intelligence is the ability to understand, to perceive, it is a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people.

You need to develop intelligence in yourself, train it – train your mental strength, just as you train your physical strength. And training is possible and necessary in any conditions.

That training physical strength contributes to longevity is understandable. Much less understands that longevity requires training of spiritual and mental strength.

The fact is that an angry and angry reaction to the environment, rudeness and lack of understanding of others is a sign of mental and spiritual weakness, human inability to live... Pushing around in a crowded bus is a weak and nervous person, exhausted, reacting incorrectly to everything. Quarreling with neighbors is also a person who does not know how to live, who is mentally deaf. An aesthetically unresponsive person is also an unhappy person. Someone who cannot understand another person, attributes only evil intentions to him, and is always offended by others - this is also a person who impoverishes his own life and interferes with the lives of others. Mental weakness leads to physical weakness. I'm not a doctor, but I'm convinced of this. Long-term experience has convinced me of this.

Friendliness and kindness make a person not only physically healthy, but also beautiful. Yes, exactly beautiful.

A person’s face, distorted by malice, becomes ugly, and the movements of an evil person are devoid of grace - not deliberate grace, but natural grace, which is much more expensive.

A person's social duty is to be intelligent. This is a duty to yourself. This is the key to his personal happiness and the “aura of goodwill” around him and towards him (that is, addressed to him).

Everything I talk about with young readers in this book is a call to intelligence, to physical and moral health, to the beauty of health. Let us live long as people and as a nation! And veneration of father and mother should be understood broadly - as veneration of all our best in the past, in the past, which is the father and mother of our modernity, great modernity, to which it is great happiness to belong.

Letter thirteen
About good manners

You can get a good upbringing not only in your family or at school, but also... from yourself.

You just need to know what real good manners is.

I am convinced, for example, that true good manners manifests itself primarily at home, in your family, in relationships with your relatives.

If a man on the street lets an unfamiliar woman pass ahead of him (even on the bus!) and even opens the door for her, but at home does not help his tired wife wash the dishes, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he is polite with his acquaintances, but gets irritated with his family on every occasion, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he does not take into account the character, psychology, habits and desires of his loved ones, he is an ill-mannered person.

If, as an adult, he takes the help of his parents for granted and does not notice that they themselves already need help, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he plays the radio and TV loudly or just talks loudly when someone is doing homework or reading at home (even if it’s his small children), he is an ill-mannered person and will never make his children well-mannered.

If he likes to make fun of his wife or children, not sparing their pride, especially in front of strangers, then he is (excuse me!) simply stupid.

A well-mannered person is one who wants and knows how to respect others; he is one for whom his own politeness is not only familiar and easy, but also pleasant. This is someone who is equally polite to both senior and junior in age and position.

A well-mannered person in all respects does not behave “loudly”, saves the time of others (“Accuracy is the politeness of kings,” says the saying), strictly fulfills the promises given to others, does not put on airs, does not turn up his nose, and is always the same - at home, in at school, at college, at work, in the store and on the bus.

The reader has probably noticed that I am addressing mainly the man, the head of the family. This is because women actually need to give way... not just at the door.

But an intelligent woman will easily understand what exactly needs to be done so that, while always and with gratitude accepting from a man the right given to her by nature, force the man to give up primacy to her as little as possible. And this is much more difficult! That’s why nature made sure that women for the most part (I’m not talking about exceptions) are endowed with a greater sense of tact and greater natural politeness than men...

There are many books about "good manners". These books explain how to behave in society, at a party and at home, in the theater, at work, with elders and younger ones, how to speak without offending the ears, and dress without offending the eyesight of others. But people, unfortunately, draw little from these books. This happens, I think, because books about good manners rarely explain why good manners are needed. It seems: having good manners is false, boring, unnecessary. A person with good manners can actually cover up bad deeds.

Yes, good manners can be very external, but in general, good manners are created by the experience of many generations and mark the centuries-old desire of people to be better, to live more conveniently and more beautifully.

What's the matter? What is the basic guide to acquiring good manners? Is it a simple collection of rules, “recipes” of behavior, instructions that are difficult to remember all of?

At the heart of all good manners is caring - caring so that one does not disturb another, so that everyone feels good together.

We must be able to not interfere with each other. Therefore, there is no need to make noise. You can’t stop your ears from the noise – this is hardly possible in all cases. For example, at the table while eating. Therefore, there is no need to slurp, no need to loudly put your fork on the plate, noisily suck in soup, speak loudly at dinner or talk with your mouth full so that your neighbors do not have concerns. And you don’t need to put your elbows on the table - again, so as not to disturb your neighbor. It is necessary to be neatly dressed because this shows respect for others - guests, hosts, or just passers-by: it should not be disgusting to look at you. There is no need to bore your neighbors with continuous jokes, witticisms and anecdotes, especially those that have already been told to your listeners by someone. This puts your listeners in an awkward position. Try not only to entertain others, but also to let others tell you something. Manners, clothing, gait, all behavior should be restrained and... beautiful. For any beauty does not tire. She is "social". And there is always a deep meaning in so-called good manners. Do not think that good manners are just manners, that is, something superficial. By your behavior you reveal your essence. You need to cultivate in yourself not so much manners as what is expressed in manners, a caring attitude towards the world: towards society, towards nature, towards animals and birds, towards plants, towards the beauty of the area, towards the past of the places where you live, etc. d.

You don’t need to memorize hundreds of rules, but remember one thing – the need to respect others. And if you have this and a little more resourcefulness, then manners will come to you on their own, or, better said, the memory of the rules of good behavior, the desire and ability to apply them will come.

Letter fourteen
About bad and good influences

In the life of every person there is a curious age-related phenomenon: third-party influences. These outside influences are usually extremely strong when a boy or girl begins to become an adult - at a turning point. Then the power of these influences passes. But boys and girls need to remember about influences, their “pathology”, and sometimes normality.

Maybe there is no special pathology here: just a growing person, a boy or a girl, wants to quickly become an adult, independent. But, becoming independent, they strive to free themselves, first of all, from the influence of their family. The idea of their “childhood” is associated with their family. The family itself is partly to blame for this, as it does not notice that their “child,” if not grown up, then wants to be an adult. But the habit of obeying has not yet passed, and so he obeys the one who recognized him as an adult - sometimes a person who has not yet become an adult and truly independent.

Influences are both good and bad. Remember this. But you should be wary of bad influences. Because a person with a will does not succumb to bad influence, he chooses his own path. A weak-willed person succumbs to bad influences. Be afraid of unconscious influences, especially if you do not yet know how to accurately and clearly distinguish good from bad, if you like the praise and approval of your comrades, no matter what these praises and approvals may be: as long as they are praised.

It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feeding a child, walking an old man across the street, giving up a seat on a tram, working well, being polite and courteous... etc., etc. - all this is easy for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

During his entire life, the Soviet scientist Dmitry Sergeevich wrote more than 1000 articles, left about 500 scientific and 600 journalistic works. Including more than 40 books on the history of ancient Russian literature and Russian culture.

But one of Likhachev’s most interesting and valuable books is his testament book: “Letters about the good and the beautiful.”

These “letters” (46 letters) are addressed to young people who still have to learn life and walk its difficult paths. Today it is the most authoritative collection of wisdom. This book is being translated in different countries and into many languages.

Take care of your youth until old age!

1. Big in small.

The saying “the end justifies the means” is destructive and immoral.Dostoevsky showed this well in Crime and Punishment.

The main character of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, thought that by killing the disgusting old moneylender, he would get money with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but he suffers an internal collapse.

The goal is distant and unrealistic, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. You cannot strive for a high goal with low means. You must be equally honest in both big and small things.

2. Take care of your youth.

True friends are made young. I remember that my mother’s only real friends were her friends from the gymnasium. My father’s friends were his fellow students at the institute.And as much as I have observed, openness to friendship gradually decreases with age.

Undivided joy is not joy. Happiness spoils a person if he experiences it alone. When the time of misfortune comes, the time of loss - again, you cannot be alone. Woe to a man if he is alone.

Therefore, take care of your youth until old age.Appreciate all the good things you acquired in your youth, do not waste the riches of your youth. Nothing acquired in youth passes without a trace.

Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Work skills too.

Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important this is for human happiness! There is no one more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids work and effort...

Both in youth and in old age. Good youth skills will make life easier, bad ones will complicate it and make it difficult.

And further. There is a Russian proverb: “Take care of your honor from a young age.” All the actions committed in youth remain in memory. The good ones will make you happy, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

What is the biggest goal in life? I think: increase the goodness in those around us.

And goodness is, first of all, the happiness of all people...

Much, as I have already said, begins with little things, originates in childhood and in loved ones. A child loves his mother and his father, his brothers and sisters, his family, his home.

Gradually expanding, his affections extend to school, village, city, and his entire country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love the person in a person.

You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no need to hate every other family because you love yours. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a deep difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for your country, in the second - hatred of all others.

The great goal of good begins small - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but as it expands, it covers an ever wider range of issues.It's like ripples on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker.

Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, acquire new strength, become higher, and man, their center, becomes wiser.

Love shouldn't be unconscious, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings and deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in the people around them. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind.

Blind admiration (you can't even call it love) can lead to dire consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can raise a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany (“Germany above all” - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy led to fascism.

“Inhale, exhale, exhale!” To breathe deeply, you need to exhale thoroughly. First of all, learn to exhale and get rid of “waste air.”

Life is, first of all, breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - “stopped breathing.” That's what they thought from time immemorial. “Spirit out!” - it means “died.”

It can be “stuffy” in the house, and “stuffy” in moral life as well.Take a good breath out of all the petty worries, all the bustle of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hinders the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, that does not allow a person to accept life, its values, its beauty. A person should always think about what is most important for himself and for others, throwing off all empty worries.

We must be open to people, tolerant of people, and look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “overshadowed beauty” enriches a person spiritually.

To notice beauty in nature, in a village, a city, a street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of little things - this means expanding the sphere of life, the sphere of the living space in which a person lives.

The greatest value in the world is life: someone else’s, one’s own, the life of the animal world and plants, the life of culture, life throughout its entire length - in the past, in the present, and in the future...

And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something we haven’t noticed before, something that amazes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, and uniqueness.

5. Vital purpose.

By what a person lives for, one can judge his self-esteem - low or high.

If a person sets himself the task of acquiring all the basic material goods, he evaluates himself at the level of these material goods: as the owner of a car of the latest brand, as the owner of a luxurious dacha, as part of his furniture set...

If a person lives to bring good to people, to alleviate their suffering from illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of this humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a person.

Only a vital goal allows a person to live his life with dignity and get real joy. Yes, joy! Think: if a person sets himself the task of increasing goodness in life, bringing happiness to people, what failures can befall him?

If you are a doctor, then perhaps you misdiagnosed the patient? This happens to the best doctors. But in total, you still helped more than you didn’t help. No one is immune from mistakes. But the most important mistake, the fatal mistake, is choosing the wrong main task in life.

Didn't get promoted - disappointing. I didn’t have time to buy a stamp for my collection – it’s a shame. Someone has better furniture than you or a better car - again a disappointment, and what a disappointment!

When setting the goal of a career or acquisition, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything.

What can a person who rejoices in every good deed lose? It is only important that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from an intelligent heart, and not just from the head, and should not be a “principle” alone.

Therefore, the main task in life must necessarily be a task that is broader than just personal; it should not be limited only to one’s own successes and failures. It must be dictated kindness to people, love for family, for your city, for your people, for your country, for the whole universe.

Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not enjoy a simple promotion?

Not at all!

A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant to me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some ostentatious exaggeration of his kindness, unselfishness, significance, in this there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.

Therefore, I am only talking about the main task in life.

And this main life task does not need to be emphasized in the eyes of other people.

And you need to dress well (this is respect for others), but not necessarily “better than others.”

And you need to compile a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than your neighbor’s.

And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient.

Just don’t turn the secondary into the primary, and don’t let the main goal of life exhaust you where it’s not necessary. When you need it is another matter.

6. What unites people?

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together residents of one city, one country.

Trace a person's life.

A person is born, and the first care for him is his mother; gradually (after just a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, care for him already existed, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - the parents were preparing for the birth of the child, dreaming about him).

Girls also love to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.

Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for caring for themselves by caring for their elderly parents, when they can no longer repay the children’s care.

And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole.

If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.

Caring brings people together, strengthens the memory of the past and is aimed entirely at the future.

This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring.

A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

Morality is characterized to the highest degree by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.).

A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory.

In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.

A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person, a big step for humanity”.

Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind.

Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.”

A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind.

I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

7. About Education

You can get a good upbringing not only in your family or at school, but also... from yourself. You just need to know what real good manners is.

I am convinced, for example, that true good manners manifests itself primarily at home, in your family, in relationships with your relatives.

If he is polite with his acquaintances, but gets irritated with his family on every occasion, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he does not take into account the character, psychology, habits and desires of his loved ones, he is an ill-mannered person. If, as an adult, he takes the help of his parents for granted and does not notice that they themselves already need help, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he likes to make fun of his wife or children, not sparing their pride, especially in front of strangers, then he is (excuse me!) simply stupid.

The reader has probably noticed that I am addressing mainly the man, the head of the family. This is because women actually need to give way... not just at the door.

That’s why nature made sure that women for the most part (I’m not talking about exceptions) are endowed with a greater sense of tact and greater natural politeness than men...

There are many books about "good manners".

These books explain how to behave in society, at a party and at home, in the theater, at work, with elders and younger ones, how to speak without offending the ears, and dress without offending the eyesight of others.

But people, unfortunately, draw little from these books. This happens, I think, because books about good manners rarely explain why good manners are needed. It seems: having good manners is false, boring, unnecessary. A person with good manners can actually cover up bad deeds.

A well-mannered person in all respects does not behave “loudly”, saves the time of others (“Accuracy is the politeness of kings,” says the saying), strictly fulfills his promises to others, does not put on airs, does not “turn up his nose” and is always the same - at home, at school, at college, at work, in the store and on the bus.

What's the matter? What is the basic guide to acquiring good manners?

The basis of all good manners is the concern that a person does not interfere with another, so that everyone feels good together.

Therefore, there is no need to slurp, no need to loudly put your fork on the plate, noisily suck in soup, speak loudly at dinner or talk with your mouth full so that your neighbors do not have concerns.

And you don’t need to put your elbows on the table - again, so as not to disturb your neighbor. It is necessary to be neatly dressed because this shows respect for others - guests, hosts, or just passers-by: it should not be disgusting to look at you.

There is no need to bore your neighbors with continuous jokes, witticisms and anecdotes, especially those that have already been told to your listeners by someone. This puts your listeners in an awkward position.

Try not only to entertain others, but also to let others tell you something.

Manners, clothing, gait, all behavior should be restrained and... beautiful. For any beauty does not tire. She is "social". And there is always a deep meaning in so-called good manners. Do not think that good manners are just manners, that is, something superficial.

By your behavior you reveal your essence. You need to cultivate in yourself not so much manners as what is expressed in manners, a caring attitude towards the world: towards society, towards nature, towards animals and birds, towards plants, towards the beauty of the area, towards the past of the places where you live, etc. d.

You don’t need to memorize hundreds of rules, but remember one thing – the need to respect others. published If you have any questions about this topic, ask them to the specialists and readers of our project

P.S. And remember, just by changing your consciousness, we are changing the world together! © econet

Before you is the book “Letters about the good and the beautiful” by one of the outstanding scientists of our time, chairman of the Soviet Culture Foundation, academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. These “letters” are not addressed to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who still have to learn life and walk its difficult paths.
The fact that the author of the letters, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, is a man whose name is known on all continents, an outstanding expert on domestic and world culture, elected an honorary member of many foreign academies, and who holds other honorary titles from major scientific institutions, makes this book especially valuable.
After all, only an authoritative person can give advice. Otherwise, such advice will not be heeded.
And the advice that you can get from reading this book concerns almost all aspects of life.
This is a collection of wisdom, this is the speech of a benevolent Teacher, whose pedagogical tact and ability to speak with students is one of his main talents.
The book was first published by our publishing house in 1985 and has already become a bibliographic rarity - this is evidenced by the numerous letters we receive from readers.
This book is being translated in different countries and into many languages.
This is what D.S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:
“In my deep conviction, goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. United - in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and the same for all peoples.
Lies are evil for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and selflessness are always good.
In my book “Letters about the Good and the Beautiful,” intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and only path for a person. It is tested, it is faithful, it is useful - both to the individual and to society as a whole.
In my letters, I do not try to explain what goodness is and why a good person is internally beautiful, lives in harmony with himself, with society and with nature. There can be many explanations, definitions and approaches. I strive for something else - for specific examples, based on the properties of general human nature.
I do not subordinate the concept of goodness and the accompanying concept of human beauty to any worldview. My examples are not ideological, because I want to explain them to children even before they begin to subordinate themselves to any specific ideological principles.
Children love traditions very much, they are proud of their home, their family, as well as their village. But they readily understand not only their own, but also other people’s traditions, other people’s worldviews, and they grasp what all people have in common.
I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least part of what he can agree with.
Harmony between people, different nations, is the most precious thing and now the most necessary for humanity.”

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

Letter one
BIG IN SMALL

In the material world you cannot fit the big into the small. In the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit into the small, but if you try to fit the small into the big, then the big will simply cease to exist.
If a person has a great goal, then it should manifest itself in everything - in the most seemingly insignificant. You must be honest in the unnoticed and accidental: only then will you be honest in fulfilling your great duty. A great goal embraces the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved through bad means.
The saying “the end justifies the means” is destructive and immoral. Dostoevsky showed this well in Crime and Punishment. The main character of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, thought that by killing the disgusting old moneylender, he would get money with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but he suffers an internal collapse. The goal is distant and unrealistic, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. You cannot strive for a high goal with low means. You must be equally honest in both big and small things.
The general rule: to preserve the big in the small is necessary, in particular, in science. Scientific truth is the most valuable, and it must be followed in all details of scientific research and in the life of a scientist. If one strives in science for “small” goals - for proof by “force”, contrary to the facts, for the “interestingness” of conclusions, for their effectiveness, or for any forms of self-promotion, then the scientist inevitably fails. Maybe not right away, but eventually! When exaggerations of the obtained research results or even minor manipulations of facts begin and scientific truth is pushed into the background, science ceases to exist, and the scientist himself sooner or later ceases to be a scientist.
One must resolutely observe the great in everything. Then everything is easy and simple.

Letter two
YOUTH IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE

Letter three
THE BIGGEST

What is the biggest goal in life? I think: increase the goodness in those around us. And goodness is, first of all, the happiness of all people. It consists of many things, and every time life presents a person with a task that is important to be able to solve. You can do good to a person in small things, you can think about big things, but small things and big things cannot be separated. Much, as I have already said, begins with little things, originates in childhood and in loved ones.
A child loves his mother and his father, his brothers and sisters, his family, his home. Gradually expanding, his affections extend to school, village, city, and his entire country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love the person in a person.
You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no need to hate every other family because you love yours. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a deep difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for your country, in the second - hatred of all others.
The great goal of good begins small - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but as it expands, it covers an ever wider range of issues.
It's like ripples on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker. Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, acquire new strength, become higher, and man, their center, becomes wiser.
Love should not be unconscious, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings and deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in the people around them. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind. Blind admiration (you can't even call it love) can lead to dire consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can raise a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany (“Germany above all” - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy led to fascism.
Wisdom is intelligence combined with kindness. Mind without kindness is cunning. Cunning gradually withers away and will certainly sooner or later turn against the cunning person himself. Therefore, the cunning is forced to hide. Wisdom is open and reliable. She does not deceive others, and above all the wisest person. Wisdom brings the sage a good name and lasting happiness, brings reliable, long-lasting happiness and that calm conscience that is most valuable in old age.
How can I express the commonality between my three propositions: “Big in small”, “Youth is always” and “The biggest”? It can be expressed in one word, which can become a motto: “Loyalty.” Loyalty to the great principles that should guide a person in big and small things, loyalty to his impeccable youth, his homeland in the broad and narrow sense of this concept, loyalty to family, friends, city, country, people. Ultimately, fidelity is fidelity to truth—truth-truth and truth-justice.

Letter Four
THE BIGGEST VALUE IS LIFE

“Inhale, exhale, exhale!” I hear the voice of the gymnastics instructor: “To breathe deeply, you need to exhale well. First of all, learn to exhale and get rid of “waste air.”
Life is, first of all, breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - “stopped breathing.” That's what they thought from time immemorial. “Spirit out!” - it means “died.”
It can be “stuffy” in the house, and “stuffy” in moral life as well. Take a good breath out of all the petty worries, all the bustle of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hinders the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, that does not allow a person to accept life, its values, its beauty.
A person should always think about what is most important for himself and for others, throwing off all empty worries.
We must be open to people, tolerant of people, and look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “overshadowed beauty” enriches a person spiritually.
To notice beauty in nature, in a village, a city, a street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of little things - this means expanding the sphere of life, the sphere of the living space in which a person lives.
I've been looking for this word for a long time - sphere. At first I said to myself: “We need to expand the boundaries of life,” but life has no boundaries! This is not a plot of land surrounded by a fence - boundaries. Expanding the limits of life is not suitable for expressing my thoughts for the same reason. Expanding the horizons of life is already better, but still something is not right. Maximilian Voloshin has a well-invented word - “okoe”. This is everything that the eye can accommodate, that it can embrace. But even here the limitations of our everyday knowledge interfere. Life cannot be reduced to everyday impressions. We must be able to feel and even notice what is beyond our perception, to have, as it were, a “premonition” of something new that is opening or could be revealed to us. The greatest value in the world is life: someone else’s, one’s own, the life of the animal world and plants, the life of culture, life throughout its entire length - in the past, in the present, and in the future... And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something we haven’t noticed before, something that amazes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, and uniqueness.

Letter five
WHAT IS A SENSE OF LIFE

You can define the purpose of your existence in different ways, but there must be a purpose - otherwise there will be no life, but vegetation.
You also need to have principles in life. It’s even good to write them down in a diary, but for the diary to be “real”, it cannot be shown to anyone - write only for yourself.
Every person should have one rule in life, in his goal of life, in his principles of life, in his behavior: he must live his life with dignity, so that he will not be ashamed to remember.
Dignity requires kindness, generosity, the ability not to be a narrow egoist, to be truthful, a good friend, and to find joy in helping others.
For the sake of the dignity of life, one must be able to give up small pleasures and considerable ones too... Being able to apologize and admit a mistake to others is better than fussing and lying.
When deceiving, a person first of all deceives himself, because he thinks that he has successfully lied, but people understood and, out of delicacy, remained silent.

Letter six
PURPOSE AND SELF-ESTEEM

When a person consciously or intuitively chooses some Goal or life task for himself in life, he at the same time involuntarily gives himself an assessment. By what a person lives for, one can judge his self-esteem - low or high.
If a person sets himself the task of acquiring all the basic material goods, he evaluates himself at the level of these material goods: as the owner of a car of the latest brand, as the owner of a luxurious dacha, as part of his furniture set...
If a person lives to bring good to people, to alleviate their suffering from illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of this humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a person.
Only a vital goal allows a person to live his life with dignity and get real joy. Yes, joy! Think: if a person sets himself the task of increasing goodness in life, bringing happiness to people, what failures can befall him?
Help the wrong person who should? But how many people don't need help? If you are a doctor, then perhaps you misdiagnosed the patient? This happens to the best doctors. But in total, you still helped more than you didn’t help. No one is immune from mistakes. But the most important mistake, the fatal mistake, is choosing the wrong main task in life. Didn't get promoted - disappointing. I didn’t have time to buy a stamp for my collection – it’s a shame. Someone has better furniture than you or a better car - again a disappointment, and what a disappointment!
When setting the goal of a career or acquisition, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything. What can a person who rejoices in every good deed lose? It is only important that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from an intelligent heart, and not just from the head, and should not be a “principle” alone.
Therefore, the main task in life must necessarily be a task that is broader than just personal; it should not be limited only to one’s own successes and failures. It should be dictated by kindness towards people, love for family, for your city, for your people, for your country, for the entire universe.
Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not enjoy a simple promotion? Not at all! A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant to me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some ostentatious exaggeration of his kindness, unselfishness, significance, in this there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.
Therefore, I am only talking about the main task in life. And this main life task does not need to be emphasized in the eyes of other people. And you need to dress well (this is respect for others), but not necessarily “better than others.” And you need to compile a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than your neighbor’s. And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient. Just don’t turn the secondary into the primary, and don’t let the main goal of life exhaust you where it’s not necessary. When you need it is another matter. There we will see who is capable of what.

Letter seven
WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.
Trace a person's life.
A person is born, and the first care for him is his mother; gradually (after just a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, care for him already existed, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - the parents were preparing for the birth of the child, dreaming about him).
The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl doesn’t speak yet, but she’s already trying to take care of the doll, nursing it. Boys, very small, love to pick mushrooms and fish. Girls also love to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.
Gradually, children become objects of increasingly higher care and themselves begin to show real and broad care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care placed them, about their village, city and country...
Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for caring for themselves by caring for their elderly parents, when they can no longer repay the children’s care. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole.
If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.
Caring brings people together, strengthens the memory of the past and is aimed entirely at the future. This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring. A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.
Morality is characterized to the highest degree by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.
A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person, a big step for humanity.”
Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feeding a child, walking an old man across the street, giving up a seat on a tram, working well, being polite and courteous... etc., etc. - all this is easy for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.
Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.” A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind. I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

Letter Eight
BE FUN BUT NOT BE FUNNY

They say that content determines form. This is true, but the opposite is also true: the content depends on the form. The famous American psychologist of the beginning of this century, D. James, wrote: “We cry because we are sad, but we are also sad because we cry.” Therefore, let's talk about the form of our behavior, about what should become our habit and what should also become our internal content.
Once upon a time it was considered indecent to show with all your appearance that a misfortune had happened to you, that you were in grief. A person should not have imposed his depressed state on others. It was necessary to maintain dignity even in grief, to be even with everyone, not to become self-absorbed and to remain as friendly and even cheerful as possible. The ability to maintain dignity, not to impose one’s sorrows on others, not to spoil others’ moods, to always be even in dealing with people, to always be friendly and cheerful is a great and real art that helps to live in society and society itself.
But how cheerful should you be? Noisy and intrusive fun is tiring for those around you. A young man who is always spitting out witticisms is no longer perceived as behaving with dignity. He becomes a buffoon. And this is the worst thing that can happen to a person in society, and it ultimately means a loss of humor.
Don't be funny.
Not being funny is not only an ability to behave, but also a sign of intelligence.
You can be funny in everything, even in the way you dress. If a man carefully matches his tie to his shirt, or his shirt to his suit, he is ridiculous. Excessive concern for one's appearance is immediately visible. We must take care to dress decently, but this concern for men should not go beyond certain limits. A man who cares excessively about his appearance is unpleasant. A woman is a different matter. Men's clothes should have only a hint of fashion. A perfectly clean shirt, clean shoes and a fresh, but not very bright tie are enough. The suit may be old, it should not just be unkempt.
When talking with others, know how to listen, know how to be silent, know how to joke, but rarely and at the right time. Take up as little space as possible. Therefore, at dinner, do not put your elbows on the table, embarrassing your neighbor, but also do not try too hard to be the “life of the party.” Observe moderation in everything, do not be intrusive even with your friendly feelings.
Don't be tormented by your shortcomings if you have them. If you stutter, don't think it's too bad. Stutterers can be excellent speakers, meaning every word they say. The best lecturer at Moscow University, famous for its eloquent professors, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky stuttered. A slight squint can add significance to the face, while lameness can add significance to movements. But if you're shy, don't be afraid of it either. Don't be ashamed of your shyness: Shyness is very cute and not at all funny. She only becomes funny if you try too hard to overcome her and are embarrassed by her. Be simple and forgiving of your shortcomings. Don't suffer from them. There is nothing worse when an “inferiority complex” develops in a person, and with it bitterness, hostility towards other people, and envy. A person loses what is best in him - kindness.
There is no better music than silence, silence in the mountains, silence in the forest. There is no better “music in a person” than modesty and the ability to remain silent, not to come to the forefront. There is nothing more unpleasant and stupid in a person’s appearance and behavior than being important or noisy; There is nothing funnier in a man than excessive care for his suit and hairstyle, calculated movements and a “fountain of witticisms” and anecdotes, especially if they are repeated.
In your behavior, be afraid to be funny and try to be modest and quiet.
Never let yourself go, always be even with people, respect the people who surround you.
Here are some tips, it would seem, about secondary things - about your behavior, about your appearance, but also about your inner world: do not be afraid of your physical shortcomings. Treat them with dignity and you will look elegant.
I have a girl friend who has a slightly hunchback. Honestly, I never tire of admiring her grace on those rare occasions when I meet her at museum openings (everyone meets there - that’s why they are cultural holidays).
And one more thing, and perhaps the most important: be truthful. He who seeks to deceive others first of all deceives himself. He naively thinks that they believed him, and those around him were actually just polite. But a lie always reveals itself, a lie is always “felt”, and you not only become disgusting, worse, you become ridiculous.
Don't be funny! Truthfulness is beautiful, even if you admit that you deceived before on some occasion, and explain why you did it. This will correct the situation. You will be respected and you will show your intelligence.
Simplicity and “silence” in a person, truthfulness, lack of pretensions in clothing and behavior - this is the most attractive “form” in a person, which also becomes his most elegant “content”.

Letter Nine
WHEN SHOULD YOU BE OFFENDED?

You should only be offended when they want to offend you. If they don’t want to, and the reason for the offense is an accident, then why be offended?
Without getting angry, clear up the misunderstanding - that’s all.
Well, what if they want to offend? Before responding to an insult with an insult, it is worth thinking: should one stoop to being offended? After all, resentment usually lies somewhere low and you should bend down to it in order to pick it up.
If you still decide to be offended, then first perform some mathematical operation - subtraction, division, etc. Let's say you were insulted for something for which you were only partly to blame. Subtract from your feelings of resentment everything that does not apply to you. Let's say that you were offended for noble reasons - divide your feelings into the noble motives that caused the offensive remark, etc. Having performed some necessary mathematical operation in your mind, you will be able to respond to the insult with greater dignity, which will be the more noble the You attach less importance to resentment. Up to certain limits, of course.
In general, excessive touchiness is a sign of a lack of intelligence or some kind of complex. Be smart.
There is a good English rule: be offended only when you want offend intentionally offended. There is no need to be offended by simple inattention or forgetfulness (sometimes characteristic of a given person due to age or some psychological shortcomings). On the contrary, show special care to such a “forgetful” person - it will be beautiful and noble.
This is if they “offend” you, but what to do when you yourself can offend someone else? You need to be especially careful when dealing with touchy people. Touchiness is a very painful character trait.

Letter ten
HONOR TRUE AND FALSE

I don't like definitions and am often not ready for them. But I can point out some differences between conscience and honor.
There is one significant difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience one is purified to one degree or another. Conscience is gnawing. Conscience is never false. It can be muted or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor can be completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called “uniform honor.” We have lost such a phenomenon, unusual for our society, as the concept of noble honor, but the “honor of the uniform” remains a heavy burden. It was as if the man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders had been removed. And inside which a conscientious heart no longer beats.
“The honor of the uniform” forces managers to defend false or flawed projects, insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, fight with societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. Many examples of such defense of “uniform honor” can be given.
True honor is always in accordance with conscience. False honor is a mirage in the desert, in the moral desert of the human (or rather, “bureaucratic”) soul.

Letter Eleven
ABOUT CAREERISM

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is focused on the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.
Then, as a boy and a young man, he also studies.
And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...
But the acceleration continues, and now, instead of studying, the time comes for many to master their situation in life. The movement proceeds by inertia. A person is always striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in placing oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the real content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person personally unhappy and unbearable for others.

Letter Twelve
A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT

A person must be intelligent! What if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: that’s how the circumstances developed. What if the environment doesn’t allow it? What if his intelligence makes him a “black sheep” among his colleagues, friends, relatives, and simply prevents him from getting closer to other people?

Caring is what unites people, strengthens the memory of the past, and is aimed entirely at the future. This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring. A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

The Apostle Paul says: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may be tempted...” This means that you should not blindly imitate what “this age” suggests, but have much more with “this age.” more active relationships - on the basis of transforming oneself by “renewal of the mind,” that is, on the basis of a sound discernment of what is good and what is bad in “this age.”

There is the music of time and there is the noise of time. The noise often drowns out the music. For the noise can be immeasurably great, but the music sounds within the standards given to it by the composer. Evil knows this and therefore is always very noisy.

Evil tends to be gregarious. The evil ones gather in a crowd, they are unanimous in attack, but, having won, they begin to gnaw at each other. Parties are the same flocks.

Idleness does not at all consist in the fact that a person sits idle, “with folded arms” in the literal sense. No, the slacker is always busy: he talks idle talk on the phone (sometimes for hours), goes to visit people, sits in front of the TV and watches everything, sleeps for a long time, comes up with different things to do. In general, a slacker is always very busy...

The physiologist Ukhtomsky has the “law of an honored interlocutor,” which should be taken into account in everyday life.

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.

Trace a person's life.

A person is born, and the first care for him is the mother, gradually (after a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, there was already care for him, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - until the birth of the child parents were preparing and dreaming about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl doesn’t speak yet, but she’s already trying to take care of the doll, nursing it. Boys, very small, love to pick mushrooms and fish. Girls also love to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.

Gradually, children become objects of increasingly higher care and themselves begin to show real and broad care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care placed them, about their village, city and country...

Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their elderly parents - when they can no longer repay the children’s care. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole. If concern is directed only at oneself, then one is selfish.

Somewhere in Belinsky’s letters, I remember, there is this idea: scoundrels always prevail over decent people because they treat decent people as scoundrels, and decent people treat scoundrels as decent people.

A stupid person does not like a smart person, an uneducated person does not like an educated person, an ill-mannered person does not like a well-mannered person, etc. And all this is hidden behind some phrase: “I am a simple person...”, “I don’t like philosophizing,” “I lived my life without it,” “all this is from the evil one,” etc. And in the soul there is hatred, envy, a feeling of one’s own inferiority.

Miscavige said somewhere: “The devil is a coward, he is afraid of loneliness and always hides in the crowd.” And again: “The devil seeks darkness, and we must hide from him in the light.”

Always remember that there is something that you have not yet matured into. Be brave in trying to embrace other cultures. Be brave in a complex and incomprehensible culture, in relation to what is intellectually superior to you.

Vladimir Nabokov said about himself shortly before his death: “I think like a genius, write like an average writer, and speak like a child.” But the first thing is the most important, the reflection of thought carries in itself any bad letter and any childishly helpless speech.

A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person is a big step for humanity.” Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feed a child, carry an old man across the street, give up your seat on a tram, work well, be polite and courteous... etc. and so on. - all this is simple for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

Habakkuk about himself: “There are no good deeds, but God glorified.”

Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.” A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind. I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

“Jesus, seeing Nathanael coming to him, said of him: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile”fn (Gospel of John, 1, 47.).

What does this text mean? First of all, what kind of “cunning” are we talking about? Deceit is a lie. The father of lies is the devil, the “evil one.” Wed. in prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Cunning is all kinds of pretense, insincerity, temptation by something that a person does not need.

Does what Jesus said mean that the national characteristic of the Israelites is the absence of guile in them? No, what has been said means that the true nature of a person of any nationality is revealed when the husk of lies, deceit, and pretense falls off; when a person is completely sincere, simple.

"Week of open good deeds." This is a topic for thought and a short essay. The action takes place at an unknown time. Maybe in the year two thousand. The word “kind” is despised, and they say “dobrenky” when they want to insult. There should only be “irreconcilability.” And suddenly a decree: you can and even need to do good deeds - do them individually! It is even recommended to engage in charity. You can give and beg for alms. It is possible and even recommended to give and receive in debt. You can come to hospitals to help the sick, wash the floors. You can, you can, you can... And now people discover the happiness of kindness. For many, acquisitiveness, the passion for profit, for collecting trifles, dissolves like fog. People smile at each other after doing a good deed. Someone is carrying an elderly man across the street. Not “someone”, but everyone gives up their seats on the subway to the elderly.

Happy faces. The saleswomen are happy to sell and are happy to carefully wrap their purchases.

And they are already asking to extend the week of open good deeds. They write letters to the top about this.

Children are zealously taking up the revolution of goodness. They are the most and the first to be infected with goodness. Good becomes their favorite game. They learn to do good from the village old women. They look for the poor, the sick, the elderly, orphans who need help, and find the unfortunate. Groups of “pathfinders of good” are organized.

There is a reconciliation with the world. That's why there are unhappy people: to give happiness to others. The unhappy become the happy cares of others, for the unhappy in one thing can be happy in another.

Stravinsky spoke about Vl.Vas. Stasov that he did not speak badly even about the weather.

Among the many trifles of narcissism in V.V. Rozanov also has wonderful, well-expressed thoughts; here is one: “It is good to move with a reserve of great silence in the soul; for example, travel. Then everything seems bright, meaningful, everything fits into a good result. But “sitting still” is good only with a lot of movement in your soul. Kant sat all his life: but he had so much movement in his soul that from his “sitting” the worlds moved”fn (Rozanov V.V. Solitary. St. Petersburg, 1912, p. 153.).

In order to get “silence” while traveling, it is good to take notes or take photographs: this seems to separate a person from himself.

During my anniversary, an incredible amount of good things were written about me, but I always have the feeling that I am reading not about myself, but about someone else, and only my wife and daughter know me. Therefore, this other one is standing nearby, but he is not me. I'm more happy for this other one. But what if I created this other one, then good. But only “good” - no more. Popularity is disgusting. By the way, Boris Pasternak was really deprived of it (in reality, and not just in his poem “Being famous is ugly...”).

The most amazing quality of a person is love. This is where the connectedness of people is most fully expressed. And the connectedness of people (family, village, country, the entire globe) is the foundation on which humanity stands.

There are a lot of well-worn words and expressions for this connection. Everyone now feels the need for this connectedness. For this connection, it is necessary either to find new words and expressions, or to use frequently used ones not in a well-worn context, to feel their significance. I will not list these expressions that we constantly hear and use ourselves.

The worst (not the “most”, but one of the most) qualities of a person is not to take care of his wife, not to remember his parents, not to take care of his children (really), not to visit the graves of loved ones, to leave helpless old people, to demand only for himself. All this, at some point, begins to take possession of a person en masse, together, in the aggregate. And therefore, using one of these signs, you can determine the presence of all the others. These people are unreliable in every way.

Walter Scott's novel "Old Mortality" (in Russian translations it is called "The Puritans") tells about an old man who cleared moss and lichens from old gravestones with inscriptions on them.

The famous Soviet oncologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Petrov (I remember him) was resourceful and witty. Alive, small in stature. He always operated lightly. The robe was put on directly over the linen. One day, an equally famous French oncologist arrived: a perfumed, pomaded dandy. They took me to the operating room. Petrov came out in his underpants, walked up to the Frenchman and pretended to blow a speck of dust off him.

In Aswan in February 1990, at the Conference of Heads of State of the founders of the Library of Alexandria, the head of the Egyptian government, Mubarak, decided to show his significance and made him wait a long time. The presiding President of France, Mitterrand, came out of the situation brilliantly. He went deep into reading the papers and when Mubarak finally entered, Mitterrand did not notice his appearance and only after a while, lifting his head from the papers, he opened the meeting, forcing Mubarak to wait in turn. The most brilliant speech on the importance of libraries in general and the future of the Library of Alexandria was undoubtedly delivered at this conference by Mitterrand. Mubarak spoke platitudes. I decided to make a very short speech, because our state did not provide funds for the library and my speech could not be long and pretentious.

If a heavyweight breaks a new world record in weight lifting, do I envy him? What about gymnastics? What if in diving from a tower into water?

Start listing everything you know and what you can envy: you will notice that the closer you are to your job, specialty, life, the stronger the proximity of envy. It's like in a game - cold, warm, even warmer, hot, burned! On the last one, you found an item hidden by other players while blindfolded. It's the same with envy. The closer the achievement of another to your specialty, to your interests, the more the burning danger of envy increases. A terrible feeling that primarily affects those who envy.

Now you will understand how to get rid of the extremely painful feeling of envy: develop your own individual inclinations, your own uniqueness in the surrounding humanity, be yourself - and you will never envy. Envy develops primarily where you are a stranger to yourself, where you do not distinguish yourself from others.

“No one is a hero in the eyes of his lackey” (Rousseau Jean-Jacques. New Heloise, letter X, part IV).

“Bekhterevsky complex” - joy in the misfortune of others.

Pasternak said the same thing that I say. I only read his words on May 1, 1988: “There is nothing more beneficial to health than straightforwardness, frankness, sincerity and a clear conscience. If I were a doctor, I would write a work about the terrible danger to physical health of crookedness, which has become a habit. This is worse than alcoholism”fn (In the book: A. Gladkov. Late evenings. Memoirs, articles, notes.).

E.B. Pasternak, who cites this entry in his manuscript, adds: “Cf. words of Dudorov in the epilogue of “Doctor Zhivago”” (rkp., p. 30).

B. Zaitsev. The Path (About Pasternak): “Petrarch wrote from Avignon to Rome to friends. He sent letters “on occasion”, with merchants traveling to Italy. Sometimes merchants were robbed by robbers near Florence. They were especially pleased if the loot included letters from Petrarch - they could be sold at a high price. But some letters reached Rome. Then the recipient hosted a dinner, treated his friends, and for dessert, as the highest dish, Petrarch’s letter out loud.”

A collection of articles dedicated to the work of B.L. Pasternak Munich, 1962, p. 17.

Boris Zaitsev also read Pasternak’s letters aloud to his friends.

A person develops from the very first day of his birth. He is focused on the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.

Then he studies as a boy and a young man.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...

S. Lec (“Uncombed Thoughts”) states: “Everyone brings their own acoustics to the theater.” This idea can be expanded: everyone comes into the world with their own perception of it; A person retains, develops or destroys this perception throughout his life.

If one of the disputants gets excited, then it is advantageous for his opponent to be cold, emphatically cold. The hot one exposes his side to the enemy.

Ivan Nikiforovich Zavoloko had three letters as his motto: R S T. If these letters are read by their Slavic names, it will be: “rci the word is firm.” Don't change your word, say it firmly.

A typical (I think) conversation between a Bulgarian waitress and a visitor. P.N. Berkov (sometimes irritable) tells the waitress who served him soup: “I always believed that soup can only be eaten with a spoon.” The smart waitress replies: “I’m convinced of the same thing, so the spoon is on the right side of the plate.” P.N. himself told me about this. Berkov (well done - managed to evaluate the answer).

Prejudices should not interfere with convictions.

Morality is highly characterized by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is the consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.

“Man is a wolf to man,” people of bad inclinations like to repeat. But few people have heard another maxim: “Man is sacred to man.” Seneca (I think) argued that “human society is like a vault, where different stones, holding on to each other, provide the strength of the whole.” This is amazingly true. Just one example: we walk down the street and trust, intuitively trust thousands of drivers, their experience and basic moral principles. We don’t just trust their diplomas, street traffic rules and police service, but we trust them as people with a sense of responsibility...

A remarkable thought by S. Lec (“Uncombed Thoughts”): “The weakest link in the chain is the strongest: it breaks the bonds” (the entire chain - no matter how strong it may be).

A person becomes a person by being among his own kind.

I also remember the saying: “Prudence is the best part of valor.”

Moral concepts that we really lack in our assessments of people: decency and honor. Very rarely, when praising a person, they say: “he is a decent person.” And even less often: “he acted as honor told him.”

Meanwhile, think about how many applications both concepts have: decency in family life, decency of a critic, decency of a journalist, decency in love. The honor of a doctor, the honor of a worker, the honor of an engineer, the honor of a school, the honor of a factory, the honor of a Komsomol organizer, the honor of a citizen, the honor of a husband or wife. A word given by a person, no matter who he is, must be kept, otherwise his honor will be tarnished. How to be a “slave of honor” - this is the highest freedom and independence!

If Pushkin had not challenged him to a duel, had not defended the honor of his wife (although he failed to do so from our modern “gossips”), he would never have defended the honor of his poetry. A poet cannot have his honor tarnished, for the poet's personality is part of his poetry.

And another forgotten moral concept is “courtesy” in behavior. It is most natural and easiest to maintain independence by being polite. You should be polite not only to ladies and with ladies, but with everyone and always.

Honor. In the realm of morality, this concept is extremely important, but honor is a two-faced Janus. On the one hand, there is external honor. A man defends his honor. He does not tolerate insults or what he perceives as insults. He does this mainly for those around him. Such, to a large extent, was the honor of a nobleman, the honor of an officer. And it was this honor that went down with the revolution and pulled with it another honor - honor of paramount importance - internal, honor before oneself, independent of its external assessment, but still of enormous importance for society, for its moral atmosphere, for moral relationships between people and public organizations (government institutions, trading enterprises, factories and factories, military, educational communities, etc.). How is this “internal” honor externally expressed: a person keeps his word both as an official (employee, statesman, representative of an institution) and as a simple person; a person behaves decently, does not violate ethical standards, maintains dignity - does not grovel before his superiors, before any “blessing giver”, does not accommodate other people’s opinions for profit, does not be stubborn to prove that he is right, does not settle personal scores, does not “pay off” with the “right people” at the expense of the state (various concessions, “devices”, etc.), in general he knows how to distinguish between the personal and the state, the subjective from the objective in the assessment of others.

Honor is dignity, first of all, the dignity of a positively living person. This dignity, in turn, is external and internal. External dignity is importance, pompousness, solidity. Internal is essentially dignity when a person does not stoop to pettiness in behavior, in conversations and even in thoughts. With a developed sense of honor and dignity in society, there cannot be protectionism, nepotism, deception of people and institutions, what is called “additions” and artificial lowering of plans or the pursuit at all costs of bonuses, gratitude, and promotions.

Honor obliges a person to think about the honor of the social institution that he represents. There is the honor of a worker, the honor of an engineer, the honor of a doctor, but also the honor of a student of a certain school, the honor of a regiment, the honor of a factory, the honor of an institution.

Worker's honor: work without marriage, strive to create good things. As in the old days: the honor of the typesetter, the honor of the foundry (do not stop the open-hearth furnace even during strikes).

Administrator’s honor: keep your word, fulfill your promises, listen to people’s opinions, don’t be afraid to change your mind if the facts require it, don’t adhere to the “frontal psyche” and don’t be proud of the fact that “I never change my opinion.” Be able to admit your mistake in a timely manner and correct the mistake.

The honor of a citizen: do not take revenge for personal reasons, do not provide services at the expense of the state, avoid protectionism if it is not “business” but personal, support capable people only for business reasons, do not write or read anonymous letters.

The honor of a scientist: do not create theories that are not fully confirmed by facts, do not hold positions for which you lack competence, do not be “personal” in your relationship to scientific conclusions and works, do not appropriate other people’s ideas, always accurately and completely refer to predecessors, do not sign works that do not belong to you, do not join groups and cliques, do not intrigue, be able and willing to distinguish between what is scientifically worthwhile and scientific, etc.

It is necessary to create a complete code of scientific morality. Publish it. Find ways to identify its violations.

In the old days, there was a merchant's word and merchant honor. The largest transactions between merchants of the old style were made this way: they went to church and sealed the deal with a prayer service. In St. Petersburg, between the Duma and Gostin, opposite the portico of Ruska, there was a semi-underground chapel where merchants held prayer services.

Merchant's honor!

And in the City of London, major deals were concluded with a handshake (the British rarely resort to handshakes).

And if merchants and businessmen had a sense of honor, then why not develop it in our society?

And one more consideration: diplomats around the world should have a sense of honor. How often now the word, the promise given by diplomats diverges from deeds! And this is all over the world. I just read in the newspapers: arms reductions in one area of arms are being adopted in order to be compensated for in another. They're being cunning! They cheat like petty swindlers, like businessmen who are far from the Russian merchants of the 19th century

Lack of morality brings chaos to social life. Without morality, economic laws no longer apply in society and no diplomatic agreements are possible.

They say that at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745), the French commandant of the fortress came out to meet the British, took off his hat and shouted: “Gentlemen of the English, shoot first!”

And our barbarism has reached the point where we start a war even without declaring war.

Little things of behavior // Notes and observations: from notebooks of different years. – L.: Sov. writer. Leningr. department, 1989. – P. 316 – 347.

The master of artistic expression focuses on an important problem: the dependence of a person’s “content” on his “form.” Likhachev writes that you can and even need to be cheerful, but in moderation. There is no need to be intrusive and noisy, because this belittles those around you. Also, don’t be ashamed of your shyness; it only becomes funny when you yourself are ashamed of it or try too hard to overcome it. The author notes that this can contribute to the development of an inferiority complex, and with it other bad qualities.

Likhachev's position is quite clearly expressed.

He talks about a person’s appearance, which reflects his “form”, becoming his elegant “content”. By attractive “form” he means simplicity, truthfulness, lack of pretension in clothing and behavior.

I agree with Likhachev's position. Indeed, in many ways, a person’s behavior, his shortcomings and how he treats them determines his “content”.

Firstly, in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fairy tale “The Little Prince,” the main character meets a man on one of the planets who is dressed to the nines. He admires his appearance and constantly asks himself to be applauded. The little prince finds his behavior funny and strange. The way he dresses and his narcissistic behavior determines his far from pleasant “content.”

Secondly, in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" the main character is a rather timid person.

Sonechka is silent. This attractive “form” has become her elegant “content”, because she is characterized by such qualities as kindness and compassion.

This text confirmed my opinion that not only “content” determines “form”, but “content” also depends on “form”.

Updated: 2017-07-29

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Letters to young readers. Dmitry Likhachev

Letter Eight Be funny without being funny

Letter Nine When should you be offended?

Letter ten True and false honor

Letter Eleven About careerism

Letter Twelve A person must be intelligent

Letter thirteen About good manners

Letter fourteen About bad and good influences

Take care of your youth until old age!

LETTERS TO YOUNG READERS

Letter one BIG IN SMALL

Letter two YOUTH IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE

Letter three THE BIGGEST

Letter Four THE BIGGEST VALUE IS LIFE

Letter five WHAT IS A SENSE OF LIFE

Letter six PURPOSE AND SELF-ESTEEM

Letter seven WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Letter Eight BE FUN BUT NOT BE FUNNY

Letter Nine WHEN SHOULD YOU BE OFFENDED?

Letter ten HONOR TRUE AND FALSE

Letter Eleven ABOUT CAREERISM

Letter Twelve A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT